Return to Naples—My Italian Bar Mitzvah and Other Discoveries

Liteary Nonfiction. Memoir. In these interconnected stories, Zweig takes readers on a journey deep into the every day life of Naples in the 1960s—Naples, the birthplace of his mother, the home of his extended family, and the impoverished city that American tourists avoided altogether. Upon his arrival each summer, Zweig, an American of Italian, German, and Jewish descent, was quickly immersed in the ways of the Neapolitans, where complaining, it seemed, was a moral imperative, the voices of singing salesmen rang out each morning, meals were not just meals—they were events—and the one and only rabbi in town greeted him in his underwear each time he arrived for his Bar Mitzvah lessons. Throughout, Zweig offers tender insights into the mind and heart of a young boy as he awakens to the wonders and disappointments of life during his annual visits to Naples. It is over the course of those summers that he uncovers new mysteries surrounding his heritage and gains a deeper understanding of his parents and the place where they met.